Grounds care/yard maintenance and other outdoor tasks associated with grooming and maintaining property are commonly performed using various tools and/or machines that are configured for the performance of corresponding specific tasks. Certain tasks, like snow removal, are typically performed by snow removal equipment such as snow blowers or snow throwers that may be mounted on riding or walk behind devices. Other tasks, like lawn mowing may be performed by riding or walk behind lawn mowers. Still other tasks, such as tilling, trimming and/or the like may also be employed by either riding or walk behind devices. Moreover, in some cases, such tasks may be performed using hand held power equipment.
One common type of tiller, or cultivator, employs some form of rotating assembly that is configured to stir, pulverize or otherwise break up the ground that is encountered thereby in order to loosen the soil, aerate the soil and alleviate soil compaction. Loosened soil may be more easily augmented with fertilizer and may also be more easily planted. Tilling might also convert a patch of soil that is currently covered with undesirable plants into a seed ready patch that can be prepared for conversion into a more useful agricultural purpose.
It is often desirable to control the depth to which the ground is tilled, stirred or pulverized. Thus, the rotating assembly may be configured to be rotated while encountering the soil down to a predefined depth. The rotating assembly may include teeth or disks that are turned through their interaction with the soil. When teeth are employed, they may be referred to as tines.
The rotation of the tines through the soil tends to break up the soil and also uproot any rooted plants that are encountered. For smaller plants, the uprooting action may simply kill the plant and discard the uprooted plant as the rotating assembly continues to turn in a continuous fashion. However, for larger plants that may have more developed or larger root systems, it is possible for the rotating assembly to encounter some more difficulty while attempting to cut through the root system. Similarly, if the rotating assembly encounters rocks or patches of compacted soil, the impact of striking such objects may be fed back to the operator through the handle. Accordingly, vibration isolation may be desired by an operator of certain walk behind devices like tillers. However, it should be appreciated that such vibration isolation may also be desired on other devices, and it may be desirable that improvements to vibration reduction be provided without necessarily reducing other aspects of performance.